March 1, 1940

Dear Professor Sommerfeld:

Professor Stueckelberg has written me that you have not heard from me as since you so kindly sent me a copy of Volume II of "Atombau und Spektrallinien," and I am afraid that you have not received my last letter to you. I wish to thank you very much for remembering me. I have read a good part of the book with great interest, and many of the men in the laboratory have also been reading my copy.

My wife and I are very happy in our new house, which we built and moved into a year ago. It is five miles from the Institute, just at the foot of Mt. Wilson, on the edge of a canyon. We have two acres of ground and there are no other houses nearby. It is a fine place for the children. We have four children now, the youngest, Edward Crellin Pauling, being now two and one half years old. I am enclosing a copy of our Christmas card, which was not mailed to you because of the uncertainty in the mail at that time.

We are getting along very well in our new laboratory, the Crellin Laboratory. We have in the Department of Chemistry about eighty-five men doing advanced work, including the doctor candidates and post-doctorate fellows. I hope that you will be able to make another trip to the United States before long, and that this time Frau Sommerfeld will come with you. My wife and I would like very much to see you again, and many of the other Americans who have been with you in Munich have said the same thing. Now that you have retired you have time enough to make the trip, and if conditions for travel get better I hope that a trip of this sort can be arranged.

I have always been grateful to the Guggenheim Foundation for providing the opportunity for me to come to Munich and study with you, and now I am repaying the Foundation in some measure by acting as a member of the Committee of Selection. I went to New York for this purpose last week, and shall go again in about three weeks.

With love to you and Frau Sommerfeld, I am

Your Pasadena student,

Linus Pauling

LP:j